Polls have closed in local elections held today across many parts of the country – with the notable exception of Greater London. These elections will be seen as a dress rehearsal for next month’s general election, but are likely to be distorted by very low turnouts.

English Democrats – 4 candidates (we include the EDs in this list because in recent years the party absorbed some former BNP members and therefore included some people who would be regarded by H&D readers as part of our movement; we should however make it clear that none of the candidates below are former BNP members)

Nominations closed on Tuesday for various local elections being held across most of the UK (except London) on May 4th.

As expected there will be very few candidates from traditional nationalist parties, with most interest focused on just how far UKIP declines. In several (especially northern) counties UKIP have lost about half of their candidates.

For example, we now know that UKIP will have 36 candidates in Lancashire this year, compared to 63 last time; similarly in Cumbria the UKIP candidate list is down from 52 to 23; in North Yorkshire down from 48 to 24; in Durham down from 31 to 14; and in Derbyshire down from 54 to 38. Further south and east the party has more candidates, though weaker in the South West: down from 48 to 24 in Somerset and from 77 to 21 in Cornwall. The biggest decline is in Wiltshire, where UKIP had 54 candidates last time, but only 8 this year.

One early surprise is in Pendle (part of Lancashire County Council) where the BNP will have two candidates, neither of them opposed by UKIP. Long-serving borough councillor Brian Parker faces Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat opponents in the Pendle Central division, while his colleague John Rowe has only Labour and Conservative opponents (both Asian) in Nelson East.

Pendle BNP councillor and county council candidate Brian Parker

British Democratic Party candidate Kevin Stafford

Kevan Stafford of the British Democrats will contest the Loughborough South division of Leicestershire, his party’s sole candidate.

The National Front will have four candidates across the UK: chairman Kevin Bryan is standing in the Whitworth & Bacup division of Lancashire. Unfortunately (like Mr Stafford of the Brit Dems) he has UKIP opposition.

Dave MacDonald (Mr Bryan’s successor as NF chairman) is contesting the Tillydrone, Seaton & Old Aberdeen ward of Aberdeen City Council. Mr MacDonald is of course already an elected community councillor in the Aberdeen suburb of Garthdee. Also in Aberdeen, the NF’s Billy Watson is contesting the Torry & Ferryhill ward.

Kevin Bryan of the National Front, standing in his home area of Whitworth & Backup, Lancashire

Three BNP candidates are standing in Kent: former GLA candidate Cliff Le May in Swanley; Ronald Ball in Dartford NE; and Michael Cope in Dartford West. Mr Le May is the only one without UKIP opposition: bearing in mind UKIP polled almost 20% in Swanley four years ago, he will be hopeful of a good result in their absence.

There are five BNP candidates in Essex (compared to 14 in 2013 and 75 in 2009): former Braintree parliamentary candidate Paul Hooks in Halstead; Paul Borg and Christine Winter in the two-councillor Pitsea division; Richard Perry in Heybridge & Tollesbury; and Trevor Cable in Maldon. The latter two are standing under the label Fighting Unsustainable Housing Because We Care (which the party has successfully used to win parish council seats in the past without mentioning the BNP name). We don’t yet know whether this time the name BNP will appear on the ballot paper in these two divisions.

British Resistance (the party founded by supporters of ex-UKIP parliamentary candidate Jack Sen) have two candidates in Worcestershire: former BNP organiser Carl Mason in Nunnery; and Linda Bell in Gorse Hill & Warndon.

Former BNP parliamentary candidate Dr Andrew Emerson is Patria candidate for the Chichester West division of West Sussex. Dr Emerson is also contesting a borough council by-election on the same day in East Wittering ward, Chichester.

Robin Tilbrook – is the ED party over?

Following the imprisonment of former party official Steve Uncles for election fraud, English Democrats candidates are notable by their absence. There are no ED candidates in the former stronghold Doncaster – which has an all-out council and mayoral election this year with no ED presence. So far we only know about party leader Robin Tilbrook, standing in his local Essex division Ongar & Rural, plus ED mayoral candidates Steve Morris in Greater Manchester and Stephen Goldspink in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough. Steve Morris is also contesting a by-election in Besses ward, Bury.

Robert Ashton is BNP candidate for the Louth South division of Lincolnshire, while John Moore is contesting the Hayling Island division of Hampshire.

Former Liverpool BNP organiser Pete Molloy is standing as an independent in the Spennymoor division of Durham (technically a unitary authority rather than a county council). Despite this being the home of party leader Adam Walker, there are no BNP candidates in Durham, nor in Cumbria where the party’s head office is located.

Further news of candidates and campaigns will be posted as we get it. So far H&D believes that the BNP has 12 county council candidates in total, compared to 92 at the last county elections in 2013.

According to H&D‘s (unofficial) calculation, UKIP have 1,037 candidates for the county councils this year: that’s down from 1,494 last time. There are also six unitary authorities that are directly comparable, having elections both in 2013 and this year. In those six councils combined, UKIP has 85 candidates this year, compared to 242 last time.

There has been a real UKIP collapse in three unitary council areas – Cornwall (from 77 candidates to 21), Wiltshire (from 54 to 8), and Shropshire (from 29 to 9).

By contrast in several South Eastern or Eastern counties UKIP has maintained pretty solid slates: 69 in Kent, 60 in West Sussex, 59 in Essex, 57 in Surrey and 54 in Norfolk.

NOTE: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that former Liverpool BNP organiser Pete Molloy was at one time briefly a member of British Voice. We apologise for this error.

2015 was always going to be a bad year for the British nationalist movement: in the event it was an utter catastrophe.

The BNP had already shocked nationalists by standing only eight parliamentary candidates – but they reassured anxious members and donors that this year the party had chosen to concentrate on just a handful of its strongest areas.

In the event the party’s results were the worst in its history, with every single candidate polling below 1% – even having concentrated on those supposedly best constituencies. Party chairman Adam Walker, who succeeded Nick Griffin last summer, managed only 0.6% in the racial battleground of Rotherham – down from 10.4% in 2010.

Cathy Duffy – one of only two BNP councillors nationwide – was defeated in the council seat that she had held for the past eight years, and earlier lost her deposit with a feeble 0.9% as General Election candidate in Charnwood (down from 5.8% last time).

Only four nationalist parliamentary candidates achieved over 1%. National Front chairman Kevin Bryan polled 1.0% in Rochdale, while three English Democrat candidates in South Yorkshire managed semi-respectable votes: 1.3% for Ian Sutton in Barnsley Central; 1.1% for his colleague Kevin Riddiough in Barnsley East; and 1.1% for David Allen in the former ED stronghold of Doncaster North.

The sole parliamentary candidate for the British Democratic Party – Dr Jim Lewthwaite – took only 0.5% in Bradford East, even though (like the NF’s Kevin Bryan in Rochdale) he had the advantage of facing an Asian UKIP candidate. The two candidates for Patria each received only 0.2%: Dr Andrew Emerson in Chichester and ex-NF Directorate member Dick Franklin in Bournemouth West.

The various tiny nationalist splinter groups polled miserably: even the well-publicised Islamophobe Paul Weston, standing for his Liberty GB party in Luton South – birthplace of the EDL – scored only 0.4%. In this context 0.9% for Craig Pond – a brave independent nationalist voice in Stoke North – was one of the night’s brighter moments.

Fuller analysis of the state of play for nationalism will appear here and in the next edition of Heritage and Destiny.

Cathy Duffy of the BNP lost the council seat in East Goscote ward, Charnwood, that she had held for the past eight years, as 2015’s local elections proved another disaster for nationalist parties. The British National Party has effectively ceased to exist as an electoral force.

At least Mrs Duffy’s years of service were rewarded by a respectable vote: she polled 36.0% to finish runner-up (down 6.3% from the previous contest here in 2011).

Elsewhere the BNP’s collapse was best summed up by the shocking 1.6% vote for John Rowe, the sole BNP candidate in Burnley, who was fighting Rosegrove with Lowerhouse ward. This is a town where the BNP were once the official opposition on the local council and had won numerous seats beginning in 2002.

In occasional wards that had no UKIP candidate, the BNP votes were less embarrassing: for example Wayne Tomlinson in Barton ward, Salford, polled 5.9%. But even in Worcester, pretty much the only area with a functioning BNP branch this year, the party’s vote in its main target ward Nunnery fell from 13% to 1%.

Former BNP activists repelled by years of cronyism and corruption have sought refuge in several different nationalist parties. None achieved anything approaching success this year, all overshadowed by UKIP. However one or two candidates who did not have UKIP opponents showed that well organised campaigns can achieve decent results. Former BNP councillor Graham Partner secured 12.7% for the British Democratic Party in Hugglescote St Johns ward, NW Leicestershire. His BDP colleagues in Thurmaston ward, Charnwood, put up a full slate of candidates in a three-member ward with no UKIP opposition and took 11.5%, while the party’s sole Lancastrian candidate Gary Topping managed 10.2% in Waterside ward, Pendle. Predictably the best English Democrat results were in Barnsley, where former BNP organiser Ian Sutton polled 16.3% in Darton West, and two of his colleagues also managed votes above 10%, but elsewhere EDs struggled to establish an electoral appeal distinct from UKIP.

Two parties were newly registered with the Electoral Commission and had limited campaigns. The National Front managed two candidates, including former North West BNP organiser Chris Jackson, who polled 2.5% in Todmorden ward, Calderdale. A faction of former Griffinites reorganised as British Voice had a single candidate in Bentilee & Ubberley ward, Stoke, where David Leese polled 2.8%.

Nominations have just closed for this year’s UK general election, with nationalist parties at their lowest ebb for many decades. (see also local election candidates list)

Our ideas have never had greater traction, but the decline of our movement following the collapse of Nick Griffin’s BNP is becoming starkly obvious as details emerge of the low number of nationalist candidates nationwide.

The biggest shock so far is that there will be only eight BNP parliamentary candidates nationwide (down from 338 in 2010). Moreover there will only be one BNP candidate even at council level in Burnley, where the party was once the official opposition and seemed likely to gain power.

The NF will have seven parliamentary candidates and the British Democratic Party one. The English Democrats (a party which contains numerous defectors from the BNP but also many with no connection to racial nationalism) has many more – 32, including one just over the Welsh border in Monmouth!

The cities of Leeds, Manchester and Liverpool will have no nationalist parliamentary candidates – not even an ED.

This page will report on confirmed candidatures as details are released by returning officers across the country.

There are no BNP candidates this year in the party’s former stronghold of Bradford, though in Bradford East Dr Jim Lewthwaite of the British Democrats will be his party’s only parliamentary candidate at its first general election. Dr Lewthwaite is a former BNP councillor, and may be helped by UKIP fielding an Asian candidate in this constituency.

Cathy Duffy – one of only two surviving BNP councillors – is BNP candidate for her local Leicestershire constituency of Charnwood, though the other remaining BNP councillor Brian Parker is not contesting his Lancashire constituency Pendle. There are no BNP candidates (whether parliamentary, local council or mayoral) in the Cumbrian borough of Copeland, where the party head office is based.

Meanwhile in one of the early surprises of this election, nationalist veteran Tess Culnane will contest Dagenham & Rainham for the BNP, having recently returned to the party following several years in the National Front. (However there will be no nationalist candidate in next door Barking, which saw Nick Griffin’s high profile campaign last time.) New BNP chairman Adam Walker, who ousted Nick Griffin in a palace coup last year, is standing in Rotherham, where he has the misfortune to face an English Democrat candidate also named Walker.

The NF has only just had its registration confirmed by the Electoral Commission following many months of turmoil, and has done well to organise seven parliamentary campaigns across the UK at short notice, including Richard Edmonds in Carshalton & Wallington, and party leader Kevin Bryan in Rochdale. Two NF candidates will stand in Scottish constituencies: Chris Willett in Aberdeen North and Neil McIvor in Linlithgow & East Falkirk.

Nationalist independents this year include ex-BNP and EFP activist Craig Pond, who will contest Stoke North – notably there is not a single BNP candidate anywhere in Stoke, which alongside Burnley was once a party stronghold.

One of the most effective BNP defectors to the English Democrats, Ian Sutton is ED candidate for Barnsley Central, while his ED colleague Kevin Riddiough will contest Barnsley East. The strongest area for the EDs this year appears to be South Yorkshire, where they will contest all fifteen parliamentary seats. Former BNP electoral strategist Eddy Butler will once again be ED candidate for Harlow, despite rumours that he was quitting, though his former colleague Chris Beverley appears to have decided to take a break from politics after several years of committed activism for the BNP and EDs.

Another former BNP candidate – Dr Andrew Emerson – is standing for his Patria party in Chichester. Patria will also field Dick Franklin in Bournemouth West.

No nationalist candidates will stand this year in Oldham – the town which kick-started the brief 21st century revival of the BNP with the 2001 riots – but after a very slow start the local UKIP branch has picked up enough strength to contest all of the local council as well as parliamentary seats here. (Oldham is one of the few towns so far to have announced full lists of local candidates: most of the country will not confirm these until tomorrow or later.)

Former UKIP candidate Paul Weston – who attempted to create a political wing of the English Defence League and has visited Canada to speak at a rally of the Jewish terrorist group JDL – is standing on an anti-Islamic ticket in Luton South for his new party Liberty GB. His registered description on the ballot paper will be “No to terrorism, yes to Britain”. He will no doubt be helped by UKIP selecting an Asian candidate here – and not at all hindered by the foolish Matthew Collins, an ex-NF member who now poses as some sort of ‘insider’ expert on British nationalism. Collins seems to think that Weston has founded yet another new party: he hasn’t. Weston’s ballot paper description is one of several registered by Liberty GB with the Electoral Commission. (George Whale is standing in Lewisham West and Penge under the same description, while Timothy Burton in Birmingham Ladywood is using the slogan ‘Vote for real people, not politicians!’)

Further news of nationalist general election candidates will appear here later, and there will be extensive news updates and analysis throughout the campaign. Best of luck to all those brave and hardy campaigners who will fly the flag for nationalism in an exceptionally tough year!

This website and the new issue of Heritage and Destiny published next week will feature a detailed guide to nationalist campaigns in the May 2014 local and European Parliamentary elections.

With most councils now having published lists of candidates for the 2014 Local and European Parliamentary elections, it is now obvious that the BNP is ceasing to exist as an effective electoral machine, while so far no clear post-Griffin nationalist electoral challenge has emerged outside a handful of areas.

Heritage and Destiny will next week be publishing a full election preview in the May/June edition of the magazine, assessing both the state of the movement in the UK and the nature of the various European parties which might form a viable coalition of nationalists in the next European Parliament.

Apart from a couple of BNP council candidates in the Ulster town of Larne, the local election focus this year is on English councils, including city councils, districts and London boroughs.

So far we are aware of just 114 BNP council candidates, compared to 739 when the equivalent elections were last fought in 2010.

As has become a common sight at each point in the arc of BNP decline, some former strongholds have collapsed completely, and the party has only been saved from total embarrassment by the continued (though no doubt temporary) loyalty of a handful of branches.

Among the BNP disaster zones are Barking & Dagenham, which became the BNP flagship in London under the leadership of Richard Barnbrook, becoming the official opposition to Labour in 2006. The party lost all its councillors here in 2010 and Mr Barnbrook is no longer with the BNP. There will only be four BNP candidates here this year. Similarly in the BNP’s other highest profile success area – Burnley – the BNP this year has only two candidates and there will be no nationalist on the ballot paper in Hapton with Park, once the strongest ward in the history of British nationalism.

England’s second city Birmingham, where the BNP had a full slate of 40 candidates eight years ago, now manages only three.

Across Yorkshire, North East and North West England a sad parade of defunct BNP branches total precisely zero candidates from an entire list of former strongholds that once put up strong challenges to the political establishment, and in some cases had full slates as recently as 2010. These include Sunderland, Newcastle, Gateshead, Rotherham, Leeds, Kirklees, Barnsley, Wakefield, Bradford, Blackburn with Darwen, Oldham and Liverpool.

Formerly hot nationalist prospects elsewhere in England which similarly have seen a total BNP wipeout include the Black Country racial battleground of Sandwell, and three Essex white flight boroughs now overtaken by the ever swelling tide of migration: Thurrock, Epping Forest and Southend.

The only BNP councillor defending a seat this year anywhere in the country is Brian Parker, two-term councillor for Marsden ward, Pendle, who becomes the first nationalist councillor in history to seek a third term but is now one of only two BNP candidates across the entire borough. Cllr Parker held on in 2010 by just 28 votes, and since he now faces UKIP opposition will do well to avoid abject humiliation, having bravely opted not to retire from the fray.

In most of the London boroughs the BNP has faded, though regional organiser Steve Squire will be happy to have fielded six candidates in his home borough of Enfield (up from four last time) and most impressively 21 candidates in Bexley (down from 26 last time but by far the largest BNP slate anywhere this year). The deeply divided Croydon BNP branch has nevertheless managed to put up five candidates.

Other islands of Griffinite loyalty in an ocean of disillusion are Salford (five candidates), Stockport (seven), Worcester (eight) and Coventry (thirteen).

The post-Griffin electoral landscape has yet to come into focus. Seven candidates will stand this year for the newest challenger – the British Democratic Party: three for Newcastle City Council (where former BNP organiser Ken Booth and his Brit Dem colleagues are now the only serious nationalist electoral force in North East England); two for Bradford City Council (including former BNP city councillor Dr Jim Lewthwaite); one for Leeds City Council; and one in the London Borough of Redbridge.

The latter is Julian Leppert, who was BNP candidate for Mayor of London in 2004 and councillor for Hainault ward from 2006 to 2010: he will contest Hainault as a Brit Dem this year.

Legal confusion surrounding the National Front has meant that only the faction supporting Ian Edward (still recognised as party chairman by the Electoral Commission) is still able to use the NF name on ballot papers this year. Mr Edward himself will stand in his usual West London territory: Harefield ward, Hillingdon, where he polled 13.9% as runner-up in 2006.

Four years ago the brightest NF prospect was in Thurrock, where Mick Griffin (no relation!) finished runner-up in Tilbury St Chad’s ward with 16.9%. This year Mr Griffin will stand in the neighbouring Tilbury Riverside & Thurrock Park ward.

The rival NF faction headed by Kevin Bryan (who himself claims to be the legitimate NF chairman) has mostly been forced to sit out this campaign, but three of their activists are standing as independents: former BNP regional organiser Richard Edmonds in Worcester Park ward, Sutton; Tess Culnane in Downham ward, Lewisham; and Tony Martin in Croham ward, Croydon.

A very different ex-BNP independent is former Griffinite millionaire Paul Cromie, who won Queensbury ward, Bradford, for the BNP in 2010 but quit alongside his wife and fellow ward councillor Lynda to sit as an independent in 2012. Cllr Cromie faces a tough task in attempting to retain his seat as an independent, especially as he now has UKIP opposition.

Another big name from the recent nationalist past is standing under an unfamiliar banner in Blackburn with Darwen. Simon Bennett was the BNP’s North West regional press officer and key architect alongside Steven Smith of the party’s breakthrough victories in Burnley in 2002 and 2003. He later quit the BNP (like so many others) and was England First Party candidate for Queensgate ward, Burnley, in 2007 when he polled 25.6%.

This year Mr Bennett is Conservative candidate for Ewood ward, Blackburn, where he is in a straight fight with Labour. H&D understands that Mr Bennett first offered his services to UKIP, but was turned down owing to the fixed policy of Nigel Farage’s party to exclude anyone who has previously been a BNP member. The Conservative Party proved more accommodating, which is perhaps not that surprising, since until 2004 Blackburn Conservatives had a councillor in Meadowhead ward (Eddie Harrison) who had been a National Front member and a parliamentary candidate for John Kingsley Read’s NF breakaway group, the National Party.

As regular readers will know, there is already an ex-BNP organiser on Blackburn with Darwen council – the Labour councillor for Earcroft ward, Trevor Maxfield. On March 13th this year another ex-BNP member, Dr Peter Moseley, was elected as Conservative councillor for Aveland ward, South Kesteven, in a by-election.

This website will carry a full guide to nationalist campaigns in the local and European elections, accompanied by a detailed preview in the May/June edition of Heritage and Destiny magazine, and in the July/August edition a results analysis and assessment of the future for British nationalism.

[Thanks to Bob Taylor, Kevin Scott and Paul Hickman for correcting earlier errors in this article.]

The 2013 English county council elections on May 2nd proved a disaster for the BNP – as widely expected – but also dealt a possibly fatal blow to the English Democrats, a party which some anti-Griffin dissidents once expected to profit from the collapse of the BNP.

At the equivalent elections four years ago the BNP won three county council seats, but the catastrophic factional splits that have beset the party soon led to the resignation of two of these councillors, so the only seat remaining in BNP hands before this year’s elections was in Burnley.

Even here long-serving BNP councillor Sharon Wilkinson chose to retire from the council. In her old division of Padiham & Burnley West, where she had polled 1,155 votes (30.7%) to win election in 2009, this year’s BNP candidate Paul Robinson finished last of four candidates with 358 votes (13.4%).

Elsewhere in the former party stronghold, other Burnley BNP candidates also suffered landslide defeat. David Shapcott in Burnley SW managed only 7.2%, compared to John Cave’s 21.2% in 2009.

A fuller nationwide analysis of the 2013 elections will appear here in two weeks time, with complete details in the next edition of Heritage and Destiny.

The British Democratic Party was officially launched on Saturday 9th February at a gathering of nationalist activists in Leicestershire, obsessively monitored by the left-wing media including the New Statesman.

Chaired by former BNP North East organiser Kevin Scott, a Newcastle University graduate who joined the BNP almost thirty years ago and put nationalism on the map in a traditionally solid Labour region, the meeting was also addressed by:

Andrew Brons MEP

Adrian Davies, barrister and treasurer of the new party

Andrew Moffatt, a business consultant and former UKIP parliamentary candidate who was also an activist in the National Front during the 1970s

Sam Swerling, former Westminster City Councillor, who fought valiantly to preserve traditional British values through the Conservative Party but recognises that David Cameron’s party is irretrievably lost to the forces of liberalism and internationalism.

Kevan Stafford, former North West Leicestershire organiser for the BNP

Further news about developments in the British Democratic Party will appear in the next issue of Heritage and Destiny.

November 2012 was a unique month in British electoral history, with six parliamentary by-elections taking place. Just a few years ago these would have been seen as ideal opportunities for the BNP – then seen as a growing nationalist party – to make significant progress. In those days the political establishment was genuinely afraid of the BNP, whereas today Nick Griffin’s party is dismissed with contempt as a bad political joke.

The corrupt cronyism of Nick Griffin has crippled the many good nationalists who hopelessly strive within the BNP, which is why every day more of those good nationalists leave that party.

Thankfully there is now a credible alternative: the new British Democratic Party, which is being constructed at a series of regional meetings in advance of a formal launch next year.

The BNP’s November election disasters provided ample proof that a new party is an urgent necessity. In the Northamptonshire constituency of Corby, the BNP vote fell from 2,525 (4.7%) in 2010 to 614 (1.7%) at the by-election. In Manchester Central the party polled fewer votes across the entire constituency – 492 – than they had once managed in just one of the constituency’s eight wards. In Middlesbrough, where the BNP saved their deposit in 2010 with 1,954 votes (5.8%), the by-election vote collapsed to 328 (1.9%). While even in Rotherham, a former BNP stronghold where the campaign started in ideal circumstances due to the resignation of a discredited Labour MP and a local Asian ‘grooming’ scandal, BNP stalwart Marlene Guest saw her vote fall from 3,906 in 2010 to 1,804 at the by-election.

After a clear verdict from the voters, the death of the BNP is confirmed. Time to make a new start with Andrew Brons MEP and the British Democratic Party.